It was a very special Shabbat last week, in our Sanctuary, both Friday evening as well as Saturday morning. So many of you chose to show your solidarity with your people, following the heart wrenching murders in Pittsburg, that you decided to spend Shabbat with us. Our numbers were greatly expanded. We also had several of our Christian friends showing up to show their support of us as well. It was a very meaningful Shabbat. As you can imagine, it was quite a week to write a sermon. I wanted to share with you the sermon I wrote for last Shabbat. In an ideal world, a Rabbi would be able to share his or her weekly words with her entire congregation. This is my way of trying to reach all of us, especially in the face of such trying times.
Rabbi Kozlow’s Chai Sarah Sermon, in the wake of Pittsburg
What a week.
It was one week ago that gunfire and rage rang out in warfare against our brothers and sisters and our sacred prayers.
For those of us who come to this room every week, every Shabbat, we know exactly what that room last week at the Tree of Life Conservative synagogue, looked like, felt like. We know the smell of the air, the soothing prayers, the kind faces that rush to greet each other. The sense of family that transcends bloodlines and family trees.
We are them, as they are us.
These shots fired were aimed at all of us - at all people who are seen as the other, at the “different ones” who become the world’s easy targets.
How often do I speak of our mission here at Bnai Israel to create a sacred space in our world where we can gather to focus our lives on all in life that truly matters most? I have called it a safe place, a haven, a sanctuary, a respite from the madness of the world. A place where we know that life is about God and love, not money, not power, not status, only love, love for each other, love for tradition, love for the high ideals that inspire the Jewish religion and that give us our meaningful legacy.
How can such violence even exist in a room like this? How God, is this even possible?
As we prayed the same prayers, mouthed the same words, the Tree of Life Synagogue shattered under the weight of hatred and violence - a mighty dangerous duo. A heart of hatred and a gun!
And what a week has followed.
Gregory A. Bush, another white surpremist, tried to burst into a black Church in Kentucky to kill Blacks, the day right after Squirrel Hill, Thank Goodness, the door was locked, and so he went to the local Kroger and killed a black couple who were out shopping. Maurice Stallard and Vickie Jones are both dead. He just wanted to kill Black folks.
The chief rabbi In Israel sends his condolences but makes sure to state that he will not call the Squirrel Hill synagogue a synagogue. If it isn’t Orthodox he does not recognize it as a synagogue.
How crazy is that?
Well here’s something even crazier.
Our own Vice President invites a messianic Christian who calls himself a Jewish rabbi, to say a prayer for the 11 dead. This man is a Christian who calls himself a Jewish rabbi, well, just because he does. His appropriating theology supports the idea that all Jews will burn in hell for eternity if we do not accept Jesus. This is the clergy Pence chose to pray for our people in the shadow of the massacre of 11 innocents who could NEVER believe what he espouses. I am speechless, and outraged. I called the White House about that one.
While on the other side of things, so many wonderful people have reached out to us all. I remember myself calling the Church in Charleston when they were massacred in June of 2015, when a 21-year-old white surpremacist shot up their church during bible study and killed 8 innocents. He said he just wanted to kill black folks.
Just like, Robert Bowers, the suspect in the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, who said proud and clear, he just wants to kill Jews.
He, by the way, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday morning. He has also requested a jury trial. No doubt he feels certain that his peers will understand him. How frightening is that?
Yesterday a synagogue in Los Angeles was desecrated by graffiti that had less then gentle adjectives to describe us along with the usual swastika.
Another desecration of a Jewish Synagogue in New York, in Las Vegas, at Duke University, and this isn’t the whole list, which is growing as we speak.
I know this list could go on and on, and I’m not here to be the reaper of darkness, because somehow, I know that is not my passion. This Rabbi does believe that this world can be changed, that it can be redeemed, that somehow, some way, if it can be imagined, it can be, and I will never stop imagining what it is we are striving to build in this world. Never! My Jewish heritage reminds me every moment of every day what we are striving for.
But the beginning of solving the problems we face hides not being afraid to talk about one dirty little word, a word so terrifying that Rabbis either run from it in fear of loosing their jobs, or run to it, knowing that they can't be a leader of our people without talking about it.
In fact, I was told to “avoid” this word at last week’s vigil. I don’t think I did avoid it, first it’s not my style to be told what to say or not to say, but I just say it in my own, Jewish way. You guessed it! The word, is politics.
If our world looks good to you now, then stay the steady course, and that would be, what we call, “your “ politics. Because there is no such thing as not being political. Once you state that you are not political, you have just stated your politics.
Not being political is a first world choice. If you had your basic human rights threatened, you would have no such choice.
Politics is how humans live. Politics reflect the values that inspire human beings to design their world. Politics is the way that society includes everyone, or chooses not to care about everyone. Politics is alive in how you live and how you vote reflects how you live.
Politics is what you’re going to do with the world as you find it. Politics is always what you do with the world as you find it and the measure is two-fold; one, how does it serve my needs, and two, how does it serve the needs of the larger community, the overall human good?
And being non-political means you’re just not going to do anything at all.
Well that approach just isn’t going to work any more because the news feeds are not going to die down. There are not going to be fewer massacres in school, churches, synagogues, restaurants, theatres. No, it is not going to decrease. No, it is going to increase.
The Torah demands,
lo tukhal l'hitaleim
, "You must not remain indifferent to life.” The Torah says, "The law makes a moral appeal to conscience, but possesses no legal sanction."
With this declaration, the Torah is giving us less a law to follow, but more an approach to life: we must be oriented to being engaged, being not only aware of injustice, but having a desire and motivation to do something about it.
In his essay, "No Time for Neutrality," Heschel wrote, "Most vividly the Jews feel that the world is not redeemed, that the present order of things is appalling. There is no anxiety in Judaism about personal salvation. What matters is universal salvation" (78). This is a shot across the bow of those religious tendencies that focus on personal fulfillment and growth to the diminishment of social action. Judaism is far more about relating to the other than it is about relating to the self.
A Catholic priest, who is a friend, tells me that the best way to take care of our problems is to get involved with someone else's. Not to abandon the other, which seems to reflect the impulse of our times.
One of my goals as a Rabbi is to help Jews develop an inclination to become engaged, to be aware of injustice, and to be motivated to act regularly to alleviate it. Because this IS what has sustained our people throughout years of exile as refugees, never having a home of our own. We exist to show the world that injustice, no matter who is the recipient of that injustice, demands protection and an outstretched arm. No human being can be tolerated as a homeless refugee. No human soul should be tolerated as a refugee on this planet. No one. After all, it doesn’t, belong to us, this earth is God's.
This is politics, engaging the world. Indifference cannot be indulged and voting speaks of your engagement, your investment, your passion for the world, or not, but that is your politics.
Like the emotional roller coaster of the events of this past week, every emotion of my own soul has been ignited. The most intense moment came when I read a poem, written by Zev Steinberg a writer for Kvelle, a Jewish publication.
It summed up all other emotions, all other ideas, all other preoccupations that held me captive this week and it made me cry. I cried for sadness, I cried for hope, I cried for how desperately trying life can be and how so many will suffer after this past week's loss of beloved human life, in a way that now that will never be quenched, it will never again be okay. But I also cried because it reminded me how beautiful a heritage we have been given and how proud and lucky I feel to be one of the leaders of this mission-driven people, carrying love and goodness throughout time.
How truly blessed am I, how truly blessed are we!
This poem was dedicated to the baby who was to be named at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA on Shabbat morning, October 27, 2018.
Little boy, what’s your name – do you have one?
Sweet baby, just eight days, what should we call you?
I have heard the sacred circumcision postponed for jaundiced yellow,
but never before for bloodshed red.
Is your name
Shalom
? We long for peace in this troubled world. I hope you are Shalom.
Is your name
Nachum
? Oh, how we need to be comforted in our grief. I hope you are Nachum.
Is your name
Raphael
? Our broken hearts and bleeding souls need healing. I hope you are Raphael.
You should have been carried high into the congregation on Shabbat morning – past from loving hands to loving hands – on a cushioned pillow to receive your Jewish name.
Instead your elders fell and were carried out on stretchers in plastic bags. Their names on tags.
Is your name
Moshe
? Our unbearable anguish and rage demands justice. I hope you are Moshe.
Is your name
Ariel
? We need the ferocious strength of lions to protect our people. I hope you are Ariel.
Is your name
Barak
? We need courageous warriors to vanquish our enemies. I hope you are Barak.
The blood on Shabbat morning was supposed to be covenantal not sacrilegious, sacramental not sacrificial, sacred not unholy. The tears were supposed to be of boundless joy not bottomless sorrow.
The cries were supposed to be “mazel tov” not the mourner’s kaddish.
Is your name
Simcha
? We need an end to sadness by bringing joy into our world. I hope you are Simcha.
Is your name
Yaron
? We need an end to mourning by bringing song into our lives. I hope you are Yaron.
Is your name
Matan
? We need the gift of children who will bring a better tomorrow. I hope you are Matan.
So little boy, what’s your name? Take them all if you will. Take a thousand names. Be peace and Comfort and Healing. Be Justice and Strength and Courage. Be Joy and Song and a Gift to the world. Be every good name and every good thing.
And, Sweet baby, take one more name if you will – because I hope you will be blessed with a long, blissful, beautiful and meaningful life…
